Tokyo Express
by Clover Luck
Summary: To him, the mild mannered, up-beat girl was nothing but a stranger. But everytime he inched closer to her, just to brush his shoulders against her own, he knew she was man's downlfall. NxM.


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Ok, I'm back after—how long again?—ten years? A decade? Well, inspiration just kicked me hard on the day of my exams (on math exam!! I didn't even study for that because of this! Maths and me don't work together as it is—we established that a long time ago) so I just had to get this down here. . .but that doesn't mean that I'll be writing here from now on (my reasoning: I'm so fickle in my enthusiasms). I mean, unless you guys review encouragingly. . . Remember; there's no Clover Luck without you guys!!

Three things I have to clear;

1) this is not love at first sight! I don't belive in that crap and they just see each other in the station ever since they were nine.

2) Natsume here is a school dilinguent (watching Gokusen has finally paid off!).

3)There's no smut. No lemon. No citric. Or any bizzare crazy things like sisters incest. Might include a little making out but definetly nothing M rated.

(Reposted this once I was done with editing minor errors)

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¤「T o k y o E x p r e s s」¤

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Tick, tock, tick, tock. . . the monotonous sounds of clock, as huge as him, hovered in front of him, nearly obscured by the bobbling heads of bustling people passed by it, but still managing to mock him every time the small hands inched further and further. To his conscious—because he'd rather flush his messily trousled raven head down the toilet than admit the fact that he was a tad bit anxious to even himself—those 30 minutes dragged on like eternity.

A slender finger curved around the Red Bull's ring and popped the can open. He lifted it to his mouth, unperturbed by the pang caused by his lip ring that he recently pierced and welcomed the rivulets of rushing carbohydrated fizz glide down his perspiring throat.

Halfway done with the drink, he—against his better judgement—risked scanning the unfamiliar sea of people in the vicinity of the railway station.

Then that familiar sun kissed heart-shaped face came into view.

To be honest, she wasn't really that pretty, and there wasn't anything that stood about her much. She had a merry sort of face, where all her features worked together but weren't considered attractive. At nine, he'd seen her struggle with acne (the first time he ever actually noticed her as she constantly used the same station as him) and finally get rid of it a few years back, at fourteen he'd seen her switch from pigtails to a single pony that waltzed with the soft breeze, tempting him to burn that rubber band with his lighter to run his fingers on those strands, and for as long as he could remember he'd see her smile that goddamn cute, candid smile that at first irked him to no end at how _happy_ a person could be when he was suffocatingly miserable—and the fact that she was annonymous and a complete stranger mattered little to him.

He smirked and dumped the can on the ground carelessly before sauntering towards her to complete the one morning ritual neither of them failed to do before they boarded to their respective trains.

And like usual, it was not lost to him that even she mirrored his movements.

--

She was taught to keep away from strangers.

"Don't even look at them; you only encourage them," her grandfather warned once. "You can't judge a person from their outward appearances. . . it's the mind that deceives."

But somehow whenever his smouldering vermilion eyes bore into hers, all logic and sense flew out the window.

So that explains why she was least ashamed with herself when she deliberately pushed forward into the crowd and walk towards him when she noticed him advance towards her. Then, once they got into the centre of the crowd swarming like heaps of ants, the phone booth distance between them enclosed to a finger space distance.

Mikan Sakura, if anything, couldn't get used to his innate gorgeousness even after seeing him for 8 years. And in close up—he was heartbreakingly beautiful. With artistically well-defined planes of his face, those movie star high cheek bones, those sinful lips—she knew why many female by-passers would surreptitiously or full-frontal ogle at him with lustful eyes. He was the type that had women flipping open their Nokias to snap pictures of him.

Not that it was his looks that drew her to him.

There was a passage of connection between them, or to her at least as she didn't know what he thought about it. Something was so _there_. Undeniable and inevitable.

Being bold, Natsume (she caught his name in a gist of conversation he was having with a Blondie once) would always take the initiative to erase whatever space was between them and briefly brush his shoulders against her own in a fleeting moment. She shuddered delicately as the exposed skin of his arm grazed her own, and his fingers flicked to feel her sensitive ones. As they purposefully drew themselves closer, she would never fail to notice the flecks of red in his far-stretched eyes as he would stare at her with intensity that made her knees almost tremble.

And at the climax, he would merely walk away in the opposite direction to catch his train, finally tearing his eyes from her. She teetered away too, feeling his touch still linger as she walked herself to her own school.

**...........................................................................................................................................................**

_That sunset_

"This dress. . ." Mikan carefully chose her words as to not disappoint Anna's expectant eyes and pinched the fabric of the gown she wore, "makes me feel so free down there."

At least she was being honest.

"I could get you another dress—"

"No! This one is really cute," Mikan rushed, not really wanting to trouble Anna any further. "Thanks. I owe you."

Anna's smile was blinding as she blocked Mikan's face to apply hairspray. "Anytime."

"Why doll-up all of a sudden?" Hotaru spoke up, flipping pages of her latest edition of photography magazine as she sat leisurely on Mikan's queen sized bed. "Anything skirt-ish was never really your forte."

"I could compromise." Mikan turned away from the mirror to face Hotaru with a grin brimming in excitement. "Mom's going to have dinner with me at Le Dîner Exclucif tonight so I want to look my best."

"That's a classy place." Nonoko commented as she gingerly picked the handle to bring the camomile tea to her lips. "It's nice of her to try to make it up for leaving you back here."

"It's been six months since Azumi-san left for London, hasn't it?" Anna added, now fluffing Mikan's run-away curled locks.

"Uh-huh. Her flight's boarding tonight and she'll meet me there directly." Mikan glanced at the clock and stood up. "Okay, I've got to go now. I think we made the driver wait long enough."

"I suppose you should." Nonoko said. "Tell Azumi-san that I said hello."

"Me too." Anna pipped.

"Go break a leg," was Hotaru's response. "And I mean it in the most literally was possible."

"Aww, Hotaru," Mikan nudged her chummily, "you're such a kidder."

Hotaru's solemn face seems to say otherwise.

"Toodles, you guys," Mikan wriggled her fingers in a 'bye' gesture and hurried out the comforts of her room.

**...........................................................................................................................................................**

Elegant music saturated the room, creating an atmosphere of light cheer as those who were at top of society pages mingled. Glasses full of the most expensive champagne used more as a prop than a drink. No wonder, with room full of the richest, wealthiest members of society in there, it wouldn't be shocking if mineral water costed as much as your average apartment building rent over there.

Mikan should really be used to this by now since she attended gala events all her life but seated poise all by herself, she couldn't help but feel that she stuck out like a sore thumb.

She sat there, still and numb, as the only mortal who didn't seem to revolve around time. Impatience didn't flicker within her, nor did petulance. But she did feel a little restless as she surreptiously glanced the clock perched on the restaurant's wallpaper.

'_Why hasn't Mom showed up yet?_' She flipped her Nokia and dialed her mother's number, silently prayed that it should be activated on roam. She threw her head back slightly to push back the hair tickling her face and waited.

"_The number you have dialed is switched off or is no longer in station. . ."_

She brought it back to examine it with creased brows. '_That's odd. At least she would have texted me if she was caught up in traffic—_'

Her musings were cut short when a butler with a handle bar mustache and a prestine and creaseless suit—to which she silently suspected him ironing it four times a day—appeared before her.

"Are you by the name of Mikan Sakura?" With an accent so thick that seemed foriegn to Japanese natives, it sounded something like 'arr ou bye zhe name of Mikhan Zhakura?' She half-expected him to call her 'grass hopper' or 'my little yellow friend' or something.

"That would be me." She smiled and wondered ways how to save her dignity when he would kick her out for staying in the restaurant for nearly three hours and not ordering yet.

He held out a lavender-scented postcard on a ceramic tray. "Someone had left this earlier for you. She said that she worked for your mother and wanted me to give this to you."

Mikan stared at wearily and relunctantly accepted it, straining a smile at him before he left with a flourish bow.

Dread clawed to the surface immediately. Gingerly tearing the seal, she skimmed through the paper inside. Her previous confusion melted away to a paradoxical mix of ire and desolateness.

Absolutely livid, she rose from the dainty chair and tore the paper to shreds as small as her fingers could rip them into. Heads turned at this, only to find a single tear slip through her Mabelline-lined lashes and rolled down the curve of her cheek, finally dropping on the center of a piece of torn paper that read;

_'—looks like I'm busy with a new project. Might come after five more months. Love, Mom.'_

And with that, she stormed out the restaurant.

**...........................................................................................................................................................**

In the dim lightings of the railway platform, a seventeen-year old female leaned on a lighting pole, donning a sleeveless black satin cocktail dress casading upto her knees, with a nose as red as Rudolph and eye make-up slightly smeared because of tears that were now soaking up.

It's pretty obvious that it's Mikan.

With the back of her hand, she felt her cheeks, and when she found black saline fluid, she cursed all CEOs of water proof eye-liners to the pits of hell fire.

Why was she so taken aback anyway? She snorted inwardly. This was a clock-wise routine; even on her birthdays her beloved mother would flippantly promise to show up but ended up saying 'I can't miss this meeting, sweetie' or 'there's a financial crisis going on and you want me to cut your goddamn black-current cake?'

She sucked in air, and evaded her thoughts desperately to something else, afraid she might spend the whole night bawling her eyes out. Aimlessly, she wandered around, waiting for her train to arrive since she suddenly decided to not call her chaperon and entertained herself by tracing iridescent cracks on the floor.

When she passed by a secluded, dark corner, a thick metallic scent of blood hit her sense. Alarmed, she saw a familiar looking silhouette of a person. Squinting her eyes to adjust in the dark, she stepped closer to the person, careful not to trip over the abandoned steel rods and cigarettes.

And clasped her hands over her mouth to prevent that ear piercing scream ready to tumble out of her mouth.

There, lay a male teenager clad in a white shirt, the top three buttons left unbuttoned with a loosened tie and dark blue pants, all stained with blood.

"_Natsume. . .!!"_

_--_

_Huff. . ._

_Huff. . ._

_Huff. . ._

Mikan prodded and languidly weaved past the crowd that graced her with weird looks. Not that she would blame them. After all, she was carrying Natsume on her back.

Yeah, you read that right. No need to panic about your eye sight.

At the irony of the situation, she laughed out loud—earning _a lot more_ weird looks than she needed for one day. Who would have expected her to give the guy, who made her breath hitch just by glancing at her, a piggy back ride? Who would have even thought about the devilishly handsome teen's face muffled on her hair—and she could have sworn he unconsciously sniffed her twice—and hands sloppily embracing her delicate shoulders?

Though he was nothing close to the female species and so he didn't weigh 'feather light' like in the novels (to that Mikan had a distinctive feeling she wouldn't be able to sleep well with all the body ache).

Seeing all that blood pooling around him inevitablely tugged on her heart relentlessly. And it just wasn't out of humanity or maternal instincts, she knew. But the heaving of his chest against her sent her a wave of ressurance, though barely subdueing her panic. There was something about this guy that made her want to fall on her knees and plead to whoever was up there listening.

_'No time for prayers'_, she reminded herself with a firm resolve and trotted to catch the train.

Once the train screeched to a halt on it's rails, with much dificulty, she boarded into the train. Taking the empty seat, she gently leaned Natsume on the wall beside his seat, careful not to sting his injuries. Immediately, she brought a neatly folded handkerchief to dab over his wounds but paused midway when a round, robust figure towered over her. The balding man dressed in blue uniform with the tag that read 'conductor', surreptitiously looked at the raven head as he spoke. "You going to pay the ticket for he and you?"

"It's 'you and he', actually," Mikan corrected automatically. "Your statement was grammatically incorrect since you're supposed to use the 'she, the subject' after 'you' the object in a senten—"

"Yeah, yeah, Miss Grammar. Where's the ticket?"

Mikan rummage through her pocket-book purse and when she found nothing but a chocolate wrapper and her house keys with a Piyo key chain dangling on it, realisation hit her like a 20 ton hammer.

"_I didn't buy the darn ticket!!"_

A very, very cold wind whipped in the train along with a pregnant pause.

_**Lesson to remember:**_ Never say that you're stripped of cash out loud. Especially when you have your bleeding crush and an impatient ticket-collector with you.

"No ticket?" The man scowled, showing a display of rotting teeth and a wad of bubble gum in his mouth. "Then no ride."

"B-But," she sputtered, "look at him! He's bleeding! He obviously needs to be taken to the hospital."

"The ketchup ain't gonna fool me," And in an instant, Mikan was thrown out on the cold platform. Landing on her bottom, she scrambled to her legs to grab her purse that followed suit.

The ticket collector gripped Natsume's arm, but before he had the chance to throw him out as well, Natsume's eyes opened to slits and the scarlett pigmented orbs glared malevolently at the man. Mikan saw him in lift a balled fist right about the man's face. . .

. . . and slug him right on the nose.

The man went flying and slammed into the other wall of the train with a loud 'thud' making the passengers beside him jolt. For a moment, he looked like he was suffering from a mild concussion from that previous blow.

The incredulous murmurs made her stiffen.

"_Ohmigod!"_

"_Did you see that?"_

"_Looks like a bunch of trouble-makers. Someone call the security!"_

"_Don't look, sweetie."_

The man slapped his red nose and yelled in a nasally voice, "You broke my nose, you punk!"

Said 'punk' had thrown him a glare powerful enough to make full grown men cry but it didn't escape her notice that he struggled to keep awake as he barely stood without teetering just the slightest. Blanched, Mikan raced to Natsume and grabbed hold of his arm, frantically bowing her head at the man and spouting out a few 'gomenasai's before dragging the semi-conscious laconic boy out of the train.

Now out in the emptied railway platform, all alone with Natsume who was loosing the battle with being conscious, Mikan Sakura was certain that there was no God.

TBC


End file.
